Recently, Twitter started rolling out a new font to both its app and desktop version, which meant that users would see a different appearance on the platform during their daily scrolling. Back in January, the social media platform announced a broad rebranding campaign which includes a new font as part of it.
Aside from the font, the company also introduced more visual changes to its platform, including updating the platform’s color scheme for more contrast, and a lot less of the color blue, with the goal of drawing attention to photos or videos.
This new change meant that the follow button, which allows users to follow different accounts, would have a filled-in background when users aren’t following an account, which would change to a button filled with the platform’s color once a user starts following an account. This is the opposite of the way that this button worked before this new change, which means users had to be careful not to unfollow any of their favorite accounts.
Once this new change was implemented, it led to a lot of criticism and backlash from the user base of the app
People started reporting migraines, headaches, and eyestrain because of the stark visual contrast in the colors of the links and the buttons on the app. Plenty of users were also confused about the follow button, where the platform reversed its colors, and many people weren’t used to this new change.
Although the button still hasn’t been changed back, Twitter promptly released an announcement stating that the change in contrasting colors would be rolled back to make it easier on the eyes of the users who had issues and we’re uncomfortable with the new change.
This is an excellent example of a social listening strategy that companies can incorporate into their own business and promotional efforts
When companies are able to monitor what the consumers are saying about the business across a variety of platforms, they can learn more about their audience as well as interact with them.
However, as with Twitter, social listening efforts have to be actionable
That means companies have to use social listening to make the most out of any new or developing situation, and to improve their position in the market. Companies can track a range of terms on social media platforms, such as keywords or hashtags, that are related to the market niche.
Although it can take some time to find posts from users that contain those terms, depending on the scale of the business, as well as the industry at large, people who share their opinions or comments with those terms should be seen as potential customers for the company.
This way, companies can track their names or the names of their products to uncover customer feedback across popular social media platforms, and introduce new features, or changes for any prevalent negative opinions. The strategy can be utilized to get ahead of any potential negative situation from developing, and that way the company can maintain its positive reputation.
